Frank D. Gilroy, author of The Subject Was Roses was kind enough to share some thoughts with me
recently concerning his experiences in World War II Europe and how they relate to The Subject was Roses
and his more recent work. Mr. Gilroy described The Subject Was Roses as being “very autobiographical”
(FDG Interview 1/10/04). Timmy is of course the character based roughly on the author.
After serving in the United States Army in World War II Europe, Timmy returns to his home in the Bronx,
and the strained marriage of his parents (John and Nettie). He reassures his parents, but offers few
substantial specifics about his war experience. What is apparent, however, is that he has acquired a taste
for alcohol, which he had shunned before the war. His mother shows concern about the drinking, but does
not want to acknowledge or address potential causes:
This is the only mention of the concentration camp in the play, and one of the few specific comments about a
significant event in Timmy’s role in the war. Many things are left unsaid in The Subject Was Roses, just as
many things were left unsaid in the lives of thousands of returning veterans. The horror of a concentration
camp or the violence and fear of war must have seemed out of place or even surreal after coming home to a
family and neighborhood that remained more or less unchanged since before the war. That which is left
unsaid, and the subjects that are not broached, create much of the tension in this piece.
Yet, subjects that weren’t broached in The Subject Was Roses (1964) are openly and honestly addressed
in Gilroy’s much later play entitled, Contact With the Enemy (2000). In Contact With the Enemy the
main focus of discussion and debate is the Ohrdruf Nord concentration camp. This was the first
concentration camp to be overrun by the Western Allies, and more specifically, by the 89th division of
Patton’s 3rd Army, of which Mr. Gilroy was a member. It was a satellite of the infamous Buchenwald
camp, and was located north of the town of Ohrdruf. Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton went to
the camp immediately upon hearing of it. As a result, “Eisenhower ordered everyone who could be spared
to visit the camp- to see what we were fighting for. And my unit was pulled off the line to see the
concentration camp. Nobody had heard that name before- concentration camp.” (FDG interview 1/10/
04). This is how Frank Gilroy came to visit Ohrdruf Nord.